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Method of displaying web pages to enable user access to text

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1. 219 peaty pue jui0 d US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 12 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent CI OI STAT Aq 914 v md sem ay sam ue xou s 10224 2 AT 03 nq QUE umop sp oty ayy oS SunLrour ouo ples sop mon 2881 ET 599431453 93 M 7 4 US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 13 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent I DIA pasoiddy Sqqog sr aded StL SHE SUIOEDAGUGqEI O1 4994 21d e ur md sem ay juspror ue mod 5 1089 02 mq umop SPP our oS Siunrrour IUO 199427 PTO pres sop Aur Mon STOMILYSUY Soot 1910 dx 3 050121 id US 7 194 411 B2 1 METHOD OF DISPLAYING WEB PAGES TO ENABLE USER ACCESS TO TEXT INFORMATION THAT THE USER HAS DIFFICULTY READING CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims the benefit of U S Provisional Application Ser No 60 271 677 filed Feb 26 2001 entitled METHOD OF DISPLAYING WEB PAGES ENABLE USER ACCESS TO TEXT INFORMATION THAT THE USER HAS DIFFICULTY READING COMPACT DISC A
2. 24 JI 998 221 3r quip OY ur 3x2 21 SPEM A gr pug 164 uo Josmo mod 3nd ysni 08 1255029 JE pue 225 nod JT 3x2 24 3924 3nd usi pue 3x23 24 uro ABME IY OY JT 0 jr pea pue Ape neurone JEM 42 ur 40 2919125 1051119 MOA md 160 COD HAIR SURPRIS PEE 81 au abed 14 858228 noA 12 US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 7 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent DG JOAPSAAUTEQX JO uorsua1xe N S qu as eu Sursn 206 voyag yra o3 PUNO pue 103 pajsay 4933 seu aged 514 poaoiddy Aqqog si aded sni E 2273 2 229 _ sb SUIOT Of Ov d pact gt E seed RIN DIMIL 314 AA JO 300x e ur PYON PY Aoyy mne3 u03307 Asdo 54083 soureu rq PUE nog P uodn JONO SuonJtuijsul Qs wy el Iqqe US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 8 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent 3943 11j Ziq B Jo 3004 Spreq pues DON
3. Imm Aou pue jre u0330 soureu APY pure 94244 Wu e uodn suononusur opes US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 9 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent 6 DIA E 3 A E peao1ddy Aqqog st sred queq puvs v ut Aou ym i a y 814 Jo 1001 3 4 J9pee GSA US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 10 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent Of DIHA ase gq amroy of yor 8884 RIN 314 Jo 3001 preq pues v ur PYON PP peasy 133293 pur rre3 u03307 Asdo amp sdo g soureu App pur uodn FINO US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 11 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent II pasoiddy Aqqog st 2884 SQ 38e diop of ouq MN 214 AWA Jo qeq puves BIO APY OUL pue 3 103302 58013 soureu 949A uodn TINO Suongonsu peasy 1910 dx 12u133UJ
4. U S Patent Mar 20 2007 Sheet 4 of 13 US 7 194 411 B2 411 413 401 US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 5 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent S OMSL 2584 afed mou 03 08 Afeangurojng gra 92 YUN uo gms 305110 Jp 2224 05 295 0 Yoou 3r 013523 spear OPENA A N pue um uo Josmo mod 3nd 3snf 08 puemi pue 225 JT EA AO y md ustp 105115 UTETE 1 2 24 0 JT peas suy peongurogne PAS YU 40 25057155 MOA 3nd ynf 363 2884 qam qo A 8 864 snp 552598 nod oed uongxsuoursp 03 J910 dX3 3914930 3080121 US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 6 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent 9 se ISpES3 MOU OF uo qns 51 205402 ay Jp 2121 SE
5. lt P gt EARTHQUAKE SEVERS UNDERSEA CABLES A href www nytimes com quake54 htm For more details click here lt A gt lt P gt The P tags indicate the start and end of a paragraph whereas the A tags indicate the start and end of the hyperlink and tell the browser to underline the hyperlink and display it in a different color font The href value tells the browser to navigate to a specified web page at the New York Times www nytimes com quake54 html which con tains more details The preferred embodiment of the present invention will generate the following code for WEBPAGE 2 lt P gt lt A onMouseOver window top frame SimtalkFrame CursorOver CEARTHQUAKE SEVERS UNDERSEA CABLES onMouseOut window top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOut gt SEVERS UNDER SEA CABLES gt A gt lt A href http www simtalk com cgi bin webreader pl originalUrl www nytimes com quake54 html onMouseOver window top frame SimtalkFrame CursorOver For more details click here onMouseOut window top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOut gt For more details click here lt A gt lt P gt When this HTML code is displayed in either Microsoft s Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator it 1 WEBPAGE 2 will appear identical to WEBPAGE 1 Alternatively instead of the lt A gt tag and its lt A gt complement the present invention substitutes a lt SPAN gt tag and lt SPAN gt com
6. facilities such as libraries An alternative embodiment takes the code from the CGI script and places it in a file on the user s computer perhaps in a different computer programming language This embodiment then sets the home page of the browser to be that file The modified code for links then calls that file on the user s own computer rather than a CGI server Alternative embodiments do not require the user to place a cursor or pointer on an icon or text but tab through the document from sentence to sentence Then a keyboard command will activate the text to speech engine to read the text where the cursor is placed Alternatively at the user s option the present invention automatically tabs to the next sentence and reads it In this embodiment the present invention reads aloud the document until a pause or stop command is initiated Again at the user s option the present invention begins reading the document WEBPAGE 2 once it has been displayed on the screen and continues reading the document until stopped or until the document has been completely read Alternative embodiments add speech recognition soft ware so that users with severe dexterity limitations can navigate within a web page and between web pages In this embodiment voice commands such as TAB RIGHT are used to tab or otherwise navigate to the appropriate text or link other voice commands such as CLICK or US 7 194 411 B2 9 SPEA
7. next web page that is retrieved by selecting on a link becomes automatically translated without requiring any user action A similar process is performed for any image related links B Clickless Browser A conventional browser includes a navigation toolbar having a plurality of button graphics e g back forward and a web page region that allows for the display of web pages Each button graphic includes a predefined active region Some of the button graphics may also include an associated text message defined by an attribute related to the command function of the button graphic However to invoke a command function of the button graphic in a conventional browser the user must click on its active region In one preferred embodiment of the present invention a special browser is preferably used to view and interact with the translated web page The special browser has the same elements as the conventional browser except that additional software code is included to add event handlers that invoke text to speech software code for automatically speaking the associated text message and then executing the command function associated with the button graphic Preferably the command function is executed only if the event e g mouseover event persists for greater than a preset time period in the same manner as described above with respect to the grammatical units Upon detection of the mouseover event the special browser immediatel
8. 20 25 30 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 a typical browser Back button In addition however the code for the Back button contains the following invoca tions of the CursorOver and CursorOut functions lt INPUT TYPE button Value Back onMouseOver CursorOver Back onMouseOut CursorOut gt When the user moves the cursor over the Back button the onMouseover event triggers the CursorOver function This function places the text Back into the delayedText variable and starts a timer After 1 second the timer will timeout and invoke the Speak function However if the user moves the cursor off the button before timeout occurs as with random doodling with the cursor the onMou seout event triggers the CursorOut function which cancels the Speak function before it can occur When the Speak function occurs the delayedText variable is sent to Microsoft Agent the Peedy Speak command which causes the text to speech engine to read the text In this embodiment the present invention will alter the HTML of WEBPAGE 1 as follows before displaying it as WEBPAGE 2 in frame 413 Consider a news headline on the home page followed by an underlined link for more news coverage EARTHQUAKE SEVERS UNDERSEA CABLES For more details click here The standard HTML for these two sentences as found in WEBPAGE 1 would be
9. be auto matically set to begin reading from the top any web page it encounters The HELPRead plug in has a different interface but performs similar functions user identification of text to be read by point and click or by highlighting and highlighting text while it is being read The HELPRead plug in will also read any text placed in the clipboard Both of these readers are either fully automated reading from top to bottom of a document or they require a double step point and click There are other current uses for such parsing routines Some websites for translation services allow the user to specify the address of a web page and then parse that entire page translating all text but not translating the formatting code and causing the translated page to appear in the user s web browser with the same or similar formatting images typeface etc as the original web page example is the www systransoft com website of Systran S A France Systran Software San Diego Calif However unlike the previous example the parsing is done at the translation website s server rather the user s computer Some portal websites like Octopus Octobus com LLC Palo Alto Calif allow the user to create a personalized web page by identifying other web pages and specifying mate rial in that other web page When the user next visits Octopus Octopus in the background creates the personal ized web page for the user by parsing those other websi
10. described in terms of using JavaScript functions and function calls no such limitation is intended The functions include not only true function calls but also method calls applet calls and other programming commands in any programming languages including but not limited to Java JavaScript VBscript etc The term JavaScript functions also includes but is not limited to ActiveX controls other control objects and versions of XML and dynamic HTML While these embodiments have been described in terms of reading sentences no such limitation is intended At the user s option the present invention reads paragraphs or groups of sentences or even single words that the user points to 2 Detailed Description Part One FIG 1 shows a flow chart of a preferred embodiment of the present invention At the start 101 of this process the user launches an Internet browser 105 such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer from his or her personal computer 103 Internet appliance or interactive TV etc The browser sends a request over the Internet for a particular web page 107 The computer server 109 that hosts the web page will process the request 111 If the web page is a simple HTML document the processing will consist of retrieving a file In other instances for example when the web page invokes a CGI script or requires data from a dynamic database the computer server will generate the code for the web page on t
11. is submitted to them by displaying text in the 5 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 requested language There are a variety of text to speech software packages that a user can install and submit text to whereby the text is converted to the sound of a synthesized voice speaking the words These applications generally require that the user is competent with reading and manipu lating high school level text in at least one language Text to speech browsers are also an expense for those in the lower socio economic levels frequently costing end users over 100 Use of such specialized browsers is also likely to stigmatize the users who may otherwise effectively hide their reading difficulties Some electronic texts embed audio clips such as songs interviews commentary or audio descriptions of graphics However production time and storage capacity require ments limit their use BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a method of reformatting web pages and other text documents displayed on a com puter that allows a user who has difficulty reading to a navigate between and among such documents and b have such documents or portions of them read to him or her in their original or translated form while preserving to a large extent the original layout of the document The invention implements a point and read paradigm whereby the user indicates the text to be read by moving a
12. mouse or pointer device over the icon or text In other instances the indi cation occurs by clicking on an icon or text Hyperlink navigation and other program functions are accomplished in a similar manner BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The above summary as well as the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention will be better understood when read in conjunction with the following drawings For the purpose of illustrating the invention there is shown in the drawings an embodiment that is presently preferred and an example of how the invention is used in a real world project It should be understood that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown In the drawings FIG 1 shows a flow chart of a preferred embodiment of the present invention FIG 2 shows a flow chart of a particular step in FIG 1 but with greater detail of the sub steps FIG 3 shows a flow chart of an alternate embodiment of the present invention FIG 4 shows a screen capture of the present invention illustrated in FIG 3 FIG 5 shows a screen capture of the present invention displaying a particular web page with modified formatting after having navigated to the particular web page from the FIG 3 screen FIG 6 shows a screen capture of the present invention after the user has placed the cursor over a sentence in the web page shown in FIG 5 and FIGS 7 13 show screen captures
13. not practical in the text of a document meant to be read a dictionary can be associ ated with a document which sets forth the phonemes pho netic spelling for particular words in the document In one embodiment of the present invention a web page creates such a dictionary and signals the dictionary s existence and location via a pre specified tag object function etc Then the present invention will get that dictionary and when parsing the web page will substitute the phonetic spellings within the onMouseover events The above identified U S application Ser No 09 974 132 discloses a method of embedding hidden text captions or commentary on a web page whereby clicking on an icon or dragging that icon to another window would enable the captions to be read referred to herein as spoken captions 0 20 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 The hidden text could also include other information such the language in which the caption or web page was written An alternative embodiment of the present invention uses this information to facilitate real time on the fly translation of the caption or the web page using the methods taught in the above identified U S application Ser No 09 974 132 The text is translated to the language used by the text to speech engine In an alternative embodiment the present invention alters the code in the spoken captions as displayed in WEBPAGE 2 so that the commenta
14. of Macromedias Dreamweaver catch e US 7 194 411 B2 25 continued setTimeout SendSpanInformation 1000 SendSpanInformation lt SCRIPT gt NOSCRIPT The Point and Read Webreader requires JavaScript to operate lt NOSCRIPT gt lt body gt lt html gt The text parsing required to identify sentences in the original source code for subsequent tagging by the span tags is preferably performed using Perl This process is well known and thus is not described in detail herein The Appendix provides source code associated with the naviga tion toolbar shown in FIGS 8 13 E Client Side Embodiment An alternative embodiment of the web reader is coded as a stand alone client based application with all program code residing on the user s computer as opposed to the online server based embodiment previously described In this client based embodiment the web page parsing trans lation and conversion take place on the user s computer rather than at the server computer The client based embodiment functions in much the same way as the server based embodiment but is implemented differently at a different location in the network This imple mentation is preferably programmed in C using Microsoft Foundation Classes rather than a CGI type program The client based Windows implementation uses a browser application based on previously installed components of Microsoft Internet Explorer I
15. of another preferred embodiment of the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Certain terminology is used herein for convenience only and is not to be taken as a limitation on the present invention US 7 194 411 B2 5 In the drawings the same reference letters are employed for designating the same elements throughout the several fig ures 1 Overview of Present Invention preferred embodiment of the present invention takes one web page which would ordinarily be displayed in a browser window in a certain manner WEBPAGE 1 and displays that page in a new but similar manner WEBPAGE 2 The new format contains additional hidden code which enables the web page to be easily read aloud to the user by text to speech software The present invention reads the contents of WEBPAGE 1 or more particularly parses its HTML code and then on the fly in real time creates the code to display WEBPAGE 2 in the following manner 1 All standard text 1 sentence or phrase that is not within link tags is placed within link tags to which are added an onMouseover event The onMouseover event executes a JavaScript function which causes the text to speech reader to read aloud the contents within the link tags when the user places the pointing device mouse wand etc over the link Font tags are also added to the sentence if necessary so that the text is displayed in the same color as it would be in WEBPAGE 1
16. of the present invention the grammatical units are sentences However other grammatical units may be used such as words or paragraphs 2 A tag is associated with each of the grammatical units In one preferred embodiment of the present invention the tag is a span tag and more specifically a span ID tag 3 An event handler is associated with each of the tags An event handler executes a segment of a code based on certain events occurring within the application such as onLoad or onClick JavaScript event handers may be interactive or non interactive An interactive event handler depends on user interaction with the form or the document For example onMouseOver is an interactive event handler because it depends on the user s action with the mouse The event handler used in the preferred embodiment of the present invention invokes text to speech software code In the preferred embodiment of the present invention the event handler is a MouseOver event and more specifically an onMouseOver event Also in the preferred embodiment of the present invention additional code is associated with the grammatical unit defined by the tag so that the Mou seOver event causes the grammatical unit to be highlighted or otherwise made visually discernable from the other grammatical units being displayed The software code asso ciated with the event handler and the highlighting or equivalent causes the highlighting to occur before the event handle
17. of the image but are not necessary code to display the image If the image is within a hyperlink on WEBPAGE 1 the onMouseover event will add additional code that will speak a phrase such as This link contains an image of a followed by the contents of the alt tag Stand alone images with nonempty alt tags will be given onMou seover events with JavaScript functions that speak a phrase such as This is an image of followed by the contents of the alt tag An alternate implementation adds the new events to the arrays of objects in each document container supported by the browser Many browsers support an array of images and an array of frames found in any particular document or web page These are easily accessed by JavaScript e g docu ment frames or documentimages In addition Netscape 4 0 supports tag arrays but Microsoft Internet Explorer does not In this implementation JavaScript code then makes the changes to properties of individual elements of the array or all elements of a given class P H1 etc For example by writing document tags H1 color blue all text contained in H1 tags turns blue In this imple mentation which requires that the tag array allow access to the hyperlink text as well as the onMouseover event rather than parsing each document completely and adding HTML text to the document all changes are made using JavaScript The internal text in each lt A gt tag is read and then placed in
18. rather than the hyperlink colors de fault active or visited hyperlink set for WEBPAGE 1 Consequently the standard text will appear in the same color and font on WEBPAGE 2 as on WEBPAGE 1 with the exception that in WEBPAGE 2 the text will be underlined 2 All hyperlinks and buttons which could support an onMouseover event but do not in WEBPAGE 1 con tain an onMouseover event are given an onMouseover event The onMouseover event executes a JavaScript function which causes the text to speech reader to read aloud the text within the link tags or the value of the button tag when the user places the pointing device mouse wand etc over the link Consequently this type of hyperlink appears the same on WEBPAGE 2 as on WEBPAGE 1 3 buttons and hyperlinks that do contain an onMou seover event are given a substitute onMouseover event The substitute onMouseover event executes a JavaS cript function which first places text that is within the link or the value of the button tag into the queue to be read by the text to speech reader and then automati cally executes the original onMouseover event coded into WEBPAGE 1 Consequently this type of hyperlink appears the same on WEBPAGE 2 as on WEBPAGE 1 4 All hyperlinks and buttons are preceded by an icon placed within link tags These link tags contain an onMouseover event This onMouseover event will execute a JavaScript function that triggers the follow ing hyperlink or bu
19. shown to manually enter a location or address via a keyboard or dropdown menu as provided in conventional browsers FIG 9 shows the web page of FIG 8 wherein the user has moved the mouse to the active region of the first sentence ONCE upon a time and Peter The entire sentence becomes highlighted If the mouse persists in the active region for a human perceivable time period the sentence will be automatically spoken FIG 10 shows the web page of FIG 8 wherein the user has moved the mouse to the active region of the story graphics image The image becomes highlighted and the associated text i e alternate text Four little rabbits fir tree becomes displayed If the mouse persists in the active region of the image for a human perceivable time period the associated text of the image i e the alternate text is automatically spoken FIG 11 shows the web page of FIG 8 wherein the user has moved the mouse to the active region ofthe Next Page link The link becomes highlighted using any suitable con ventional processes However in accordance with the present invention the associated text of the image i e the alternate text is automatically spoken If the mouse remains over the link for a human perceivable time period the browser will navigate to the address associated with the Next Page link FIG 12 shows the next web page which is the next page in the story Again this web page looks identical to the
20. tablet In the process described above each tag has an active region and the event handler preferably delays invoking the text to speech soft ware code until the pointing device persists in the active region of a tag for greater than a human perceivable preset time period such as about one second More specifically in response to a mouseover event the grammatical unit is first US 7 194 411 B2 17 immediately or almost immediately highlighted Then if the mouseover event persists for greater than a human perceivable preset time period the text to speech software code is invoked If the user moves the pointing device away from the active region before the preset time period then the text is not spoken and the highlighting disappears In one preferred embodiment of the present invention the event handler invokes the text to speech software code by calling a JavaScript function that executes text to speech software code If a grammatical unit is a link having an associated address e g a hyperlink a fifth step is added to the translation process In the fifth step the associated address of the link is replaced with a new address that invokes a software program which retrieves the source code at the associated address and then causing steps 1 4 as well as the fifth step to be repeated for the retrieved source code Accordingly the new address becomes part of the text to speech enabled web page source code In this manner the
21. the server hosting that web page 109 That server processes the request 111 and returns the code of the web page 113 to the portal server 303 The portal server parses the web page code and rewrites it with modified code as described above for text and links 319 After the modifications have been made the modified code for the web page is returned 321 to the user s computer 103 where it is displayed by the browser 121 The web page is then read using the text to speech module 123 as more fully illustrated and described in FIG 2 After the web page has been read the user may request a new web page from the portal 315 e g by activating a link typing in a URL etc Otherwise the user may quit 125 and stop the process 127 2 Detailed Description Part Two Additional Exem plary Embodiment A Translation to Clickless Point and Read Version Another example is shown of the process for translating an original document such as a web page to a text to 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 16 speech enabled web page The original document here web page is defined by source code that includes text which is designated for display Broadly stated the translation process operates as follows 1 The text of the source code that is designated for display as opposed to the text of the source code that defines non displayable information is parsed into one or more grammatical units In one preferred embodiment
22. with message posting about BrowseAloud from May 16 2001 through Jul 18 2002 printouts from textHELP website and links therein http www texthelp com discussion forum asp ForumID 5 amp section support printout date Jul 25 2003 8 pages Corrected International Preliminary Examination Report IPER for PCT US02 06041 mailed Apr 3 2003 10 pages International Preliminary Examination Report IPER for PCT 17502 06041 mailed Dec 13 2002 4 pages Bonner P And Web Sites for All Internet Professional Solu tions for Web Designers and Builders PC Magazine May 7 2002 IPO1 IPO3 3 pages Search Report for GB0509518 7 Patent Application mail date of Search Report Jul 6 2005 1 page International Search Report for PCT US02 06041 mail date May 31 2002 1 page cited by examiner US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 1 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent 4 NANLTA T SSHDO ld Tit AALNANOD UAAAYS ee 61 ASMONE OL QHIHIGOW 111 5 LXSUl GSTHJIGOIN SSVd H3IV ALLJOS NI DfYId go9ggds OL LX8lL g89VdH8A AVTA rer GaISIGOW SV H8DVd88A AV IdSIQ dHL OdWOO INAITO YASA cor 8OVd88A LSINOTI 45 048 US 7 19
23. 0 6 708 152 B2 3 2004 Kivimaki 704 260 6 728 763 B1 4 2004 Chen 709 219 2002 0065658 Al 5 2002 Kanevsky et al 704 260 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Microsoft Agent 2 0 Setup includes step to Install the Lernout amp Hauspie TruVoice Text to Speech Engine printout from web site http www msagentring org setup htm printout date Feb 15 2002 original web page posting date unknown 2 pages HELP Read Beta 92 printout from web site http www davecentral com projects helpread printout date Feb 26 2001 original web page posting date unknown 5 pages CAST eReader printout from web site http www cast org udl index cfm i 211 printout date Feb 26 2001 original web page posting date unknown 5 pages JAWS Screenreader for the Blind and Visually Impaired printout from web site http www worklink net jaws htm printout date Feb 20 2001 original web page posting date unknown page Parsing with Perl Modules by Teodor Zlatonov printout from IBM web site http www 106 ibm com developerworks linux library perl parsing printout date Feb 15 2002 article date Apr 2000 6 pages DevGuru HTML core attribute onmouseover printout from web site http www devguru com Technologies html quickref html core onmouseover html printout date Feb 11 2002 origi nal web page posting date unknown 2 pages Clickless Ad printouts from cnet com web site http bui
24. 4 411 B2 Sheet 2 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent 600 cwqwVgdS GHAV Id SANNOS 02 ATI ANNOS OLNI QH IHHANOO ATAGOW 45 1 1 LC HIXHL YAHLO HSOOHO dAO HE AOSAN TAON AV IdHH XXHI UAAO MOVE eo HOHSHdS OL LXHL HAOW OINI 50884 9905 rec 1 305410 sgovd WISN HOdAdS OL LXGL AVAAN WOY US 7 194 411 B2 Sheet 3 of 13 Mar 20 2007 10 5 Patent p mmm adop ISS30083 5204 1 4 SIHASIHS 15 SANIT LX4L AOA HdOO CNV HOVd8HA SS3IVd 6I 924105 SLI WOW 15 0894 902 4 LOE 009 NOH S1V3D YaLNd WOO HHARIHS TV LYOd 3 6 01 1 1 HLIM 4 AVTA QSIJIGON SV HOVdH8A AV IdSIG STE IVI3Od WOW qOVddaM LSANOAY HO88dS OI IXHI HDVd AWOH AVTA gDVd AWOH soe AV 14518 TaN TVINOd LSAN OTA TOE WHSMOU HONNVI WHLOdWOO LNSTIO WASAN we eee
25. 7 ABSTRACT 26 2001 51 Int Cl Web pages and other text documents displayed on a com GUL 11 00 2006 01 puter are reformatted to allow a user who has difficulty GIOL 21 06 200 6 01 reading to navigate between and among such documents and 06 17 20 2006 01 to have such documents or portions of them read aloud by 52 US 70 4 271 704 270 704 270 1 the computer using a text to speech engine in their original 704 1 704 19 or translated form while preserving the original layout of the 58 Field of Classification S h 70 4 1 document point and read paradigm allows a user to 58 Field of Classification Ai MOON 70 27 70 3 cause the text to be read solely by moving a pointing device 270 1 over graphical icons text without requiring the user to 1y click on anything in the document Hyperlink navigation and 56 References Cited other program functions are accomplished in a similar manner U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 287 102 A 2 1994 McKiel Jr 34 Claims 13 Drawing Sheets USER CLIENT COMPUTER READ WEBPAGE WITH TEXT TO SPEECH 5 TOBROWSER 119 109 SERVER COMPUTER US 7 194 411 B2 Page 2 U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 6 324 511 B1 11 2001 Kiraly et al 704 260 6 442 523 B1 8 2002 Siegel 704 270 6 580 416 B1 6 2003 Gardner 345 157 6 665 642 B2 12 2003 Kanevsky et al 704 26
26. K are used to trigger the text to speech software and other voice commands activate a link for purposes of navigating to a new web page When the user has set the present invention to automatically advance to the next text voice commands such as STOP PAUSE REPEAT RESUME control the reader The difficulty of establishing economically viable Inter net based media services is compounded in the case of services for the disabled or illiterate Many of the potential users are in lower socioeconomic brackets and cannot afford to pay for software or subscription services Many Internet services are offered free of charge but seek advertising or sponsorships For websites advertising or sponsorships are usually seen as visuals such as banner ads on the websites pages This invention offers additional advertising opportu nities In one embodiment the present invention inserts multi media advertisements as interstitials that are seen as the user navigates between web pages and websites In another embodiment the present invention speaks advertising For example when the user navigates to a new web page the present invention inserts an audio clip or uses the text to speech software to say something like This reading service is sponsored by Intel In an alternative embodiment the present invention recognizes a specific meta tag or meta tags or other special tags in the header of WEBPAGE 1 o
27. PPENDIX This patent application includes an Appendix on one compact disc having a file named appendix txt created on Feb 22 2002 and having a size of 35 145 bytes The compact disc is incorporated by reference into the present patent application COPYRIGHT NOTICE AND AUTHORIZATION Portions of the documentation in this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduc tion by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclo sure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatso ever BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Current computer programs called screen readers use text to speech software to read the text displayed on a computer screen One example is the JAWS screen reader program available from A D A WorkLink Berkeley Calif Another is Microsoft s Narrator accessibility software built into Windows 2000 Some have been adapted for or incor porated into web browsers in order to read web pages e mail Because this class of software has generally been designed for the blind or visually impaired the reader must also provide aural signals of important non text information such as symbols non standard punctuation and a descrip tion of pictures embedded in the text When the screen reader is intended to read web pages the screen reader also has to descri
28. United States Patent US007194411B2 12 10 Patent No US 7 194 411 B2 Slotznick et al 45 Date of Patent Mar 20 2007 54 METHOD OF DISPLAYING WEB PAGES TO 5 528 739 A 6 1996 Lucas et al ENABLE USER ACCESS TO TEXT 5 715 370 2 1998 Luther et al INFORMATION THAT THE USER HAS 5 748 186 5 1998 Raman DIFFICULTY READING 5 899 975 A 5 1999 Nielsen 6 018 710 A 1 2000 Wynblatt et al 75 Inventors Benjamin Slotznick 507 Third St Mt 6 023 714 A 2 2000 et al 715 513 Gretna PA US 17064 Stephen C 6 085 161 A 7 2000 MacKenty et al Sheetz Lebanon PA US 6 115 686 A 9 2000 Chung et al 73 Assignee 1 Slotznick Mt Gretna PA Continued OTHER PUBLICATIONS 5 Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 Speaks for Itself Talking Web Sites printout from web site http U S C 154 b by 758 days www speaksforitself com speaksforitself talkingsites cfm CFID 1327376 amp CFTOKEN 48412529 DirectXtras Inc printout date Feb 15 2002 original web page posting date 21 Appl No 10 084 582 iknow 4 pases 22 Filed Feb 25 2002 Continued 65 Prior Publication Data Primary Examiner Richemond Dorvil Assistant Examiner Thomas Shortledge YS 2002 0178007 A1 Mov 28 2002 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer amp Related U S Application Data Feld LLP 60 Provisional application No 60 271 677 filed on Feb 5
29. age Accordingly the only actions that occur are highlighting and initiation of the command func tion D Illustration of Additional Exemplary Embodiment FIG 7 shows an original web page as it would normally appear using a conventional browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer In this example the original web page is a page from a storybook entitled The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter To initiate the translation process the user clicks on a Point and Read Logo 400 which has been placed US 7 194 411 B2 19 on the web page by the web designer Alternatively the Point and Read Logo itself may be a clickless link as is well known in the prior art FIG 8 shows a translated text to speech enabled web page The visual appearance of the of the text to speech enabled web page is identical to the visual appearance of the original web page The conventional navigation toolbar however has been replaced by a point and read navigate toolbar In this example the new toolbar allows the user to execute the following commands back forward down up stop refresh home play repeat about text changes high lighting color from yellow to blue at user s discretion if yellow does not contrast with the background page color and link changes highlighting color of links from cyan to green at the user s discretion if cyan does not contrast with the background page color Preferably the new toolbar also includes a window not
30. be animations or videos and signal when a button or link can be activated as well as what the button does and where the link navigates To do this the screen reader the digital code that makes up the text and formatting instructions for the page The actual text is put in the proper form for the text to speech software without the extra formatting codes needed for page display e g margins italics etc Some of the formatting codes cause the parsing program to insert additional code for the text to speech reader For example formatting code to place a word in boldface might be changed to add code that makes the text to speech program speak that word louder In other instances the parsing program inserts words to describe what the formatting code sought to accomplish For example an image tag in a web page may include not only the source of the image but a textual description of what the image is or shows the text following the alt tag A screen reader would then indicate through aural tones or spoken words that the page contained an image and the screen reader would speak the description of image Similarly a 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 screen reader that encounters a hyperlink would indicate that an image or text is acting as a link in addition to reading the text or describing the image using the alt tag text The screen reader might even read the address of t
31. ck with respect to specific page elements This program only speaks certain page elements previously des ignated by the web page author Prior to Feb 26 2001 the Simtalk website www simtalk com allowed users to specify certain websites such as news on Yahoo or books in the Gutenberg Project The Simtalk software parsed the website and placed it in a form compatible with text to speech software An animated head appeared on the computer monitor along with a new win dow with control buttons When the user clicked on the read button the text to speech software read portions of the website preselected by Simtalk while the animated head moved its mouth in synchronization with the words called lip syncing the words This process worked by executing an independent software program i e the Simtalk software which parsed sentences and text strings from web pages and loaded them into an array of a table When the user clicked on the window of the Simtalk software reader the sentences in the table were sequentially read one by one out of the array loaded into a text to speech function and spoken In U S application Ser No 09 974 132 filed Oct 9 2001 entitled METHOD OF PROCESSING INFORMATION EMBEDDED IN A DISPLAYED OBJECT incorporated herein by reference text from one web page could be copied from one window using drag and drop or copy and paste operations to another window where it would be put in the pro
32. combination of hardware and software The present inven tion can be included in an article of manufacture e g one or more computer program products having for instance computer useable media The media has embodied therein for instance computer readable program code means for providing and facilitating the mechanisms of the present US 7 194 411 B2 27 invention The article of manufacture can be included as part of a computer system or sold separately It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes could be made to the embodiments described above without departing from the broad inventive concept thereof It is understood therefore that this invention is not limited to the particular embodiments disclosed but it is intended to cover modifications within the spirit and scope of the present invention What is claimed is 1 A method of translating an original web page to a visiually displayable text to speech enabled web page the original web page being defined by source code including at least text designated for display the method comprising a parsing the text of the source code designated for display into one or more grammatical units b associating a tag with each of the grammatical units c associating an event handler with each of the tags the event handler invokes text to speech software code and d reassembling the original web page source code with the associated tags and event handlers
33. device or any other user interfaces associated with display device Prefer ably the automatic loading into the text to speech engine occurs only if the pointing device remains in the active region for greater than one second However in certain instances and for certain users the sentence may be spoken without any human perceivable delay A similar process occurs with respect to any links on the web page specifically links that have an associated text message If the mouse is positioned over the link the link is automatically highlighted the associated text message is automatically loaded into a text to speech engine and imme diately spoken and the system automatically navigates to the address of the link Again this entire process occurs without requiring any further user manipulation of the mouse or any other user interfaces associated with display device Preferably the automatic navigation occurs only if the mouse persists over the link for greater than about one second However in certain instances and for certain users automatic navigation to the linked address may occur with out any human perceivable delay In an alternative embodi ment a human perceivable delay such as one second is programmed to occur after the link is highlighted but before the associated text message is spoken If the mouse moves out of the active region of the link before the end of the delay period then the text message is not spoken and also no
34. displayed by the browser 309 In alternate embodiments the home page may be created in whole or part by modifying the web page from another website as described below with respect to FIG 3 items 317 111 113 319 An essential part of the home page is that it acts as browser within a browser as shown in FIG 4 FIG 4 shows a Microsoft Internet Explorer window 401 the US 7 194 411 B2 13 browser filling about 34 of a computer screen 405 Also shown is the Parrot 403 one of the Microsoft Agent animations The title line 407 and browser toolbar 409 in the browser window 401 are part of the browser The CGI script has suppressed other browser toolbars The area 411 that appears to be a toolbar is actually part of a web page This web page is a frameset composed of two frames 411 and 413 The first frame 411 contains buttons constructed out of HTML code These are given the same functionality as a browser s buttons but contain extra code triggered by cursor events so that the text to speech software reads the function of the button aloud For example when the cursor is placed on the button the text to speech software synthe sizes speech that says Back The second frame 413 displays the various web pages to which the user navigates but after modifying the code Returning to frame 411 the header for that frame contains code which allows the browser to access the text to speech software T
35. does not change the appearance of the document on the screen or the code of the original document The client based application provides equivalent func tionality to the onMouseOver event used in the previously described server based embodiment This client based 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 26 embodiment however does not use events of a scripting language such as Javascript or VBScript but rather uses Microsoft Active Accessibility features Every time the cursor moves Microsoft Active Accessibility checks which visible accessible item in this case the individual sentence the cursor is placed over If the cursor was not previously over the item the item is selected and instructed to change its background color When the cursor leaves the item s area 1 when the cursor is no longer over the item the color is changed back thus producing a highlighting effect similar to that previously described for the server based embodi ment When an object such as a sentence or an image is highlighted a new timer begins counting If the timer reaches its end before the cursor leaves the object then the object s visible text or alternate text for an image is read aloud by the text to speech engine Otherwise the timer is cancelled If the item or object has a default action to be performed when the text to speech engine reaches the end of the synthetically spoken text another timer begins cou
36. e preset time period is at least about one second 16 The method of claim 12 wherein the link is hypertext and the associated text message is the text of the hypertext 17 The method of claim 12 wherein the link is an image and the associated text message is alternate text of the image 18 An article of manufacture for translating an original web page to a visually displayable text to speech enabled web page the original web page being defined by source code including at least text designated for display the article of manufacture comprising a computer readable medium holding computer executable instructions for performing a method comprising a parsing the text of the source code designated for display into one or more grammatical units b associating a tag with each of the grammatical units c associating an event handler with each of the tags the event handler invokes text to speech software code and d reassembling the original web page source code with the associated tags and event handlers to form visually displayable text to speech enabled web page source code wherein when an event associated with an event US 7 194 411 B2 29 handler occurs during user interaction with a display of a text to speech enabled web page the text to speech software code causes the grammatical unit associated with the tag of the event handler to be automatically spoken 19 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein the user in
37. ein the preset time period is a human perceivable time period 32 The article of manufacture of claim 30 wherein the preset time period is at least about one second 33 The article of manufacture of claim 29 wherein the link is hypertext and the associated text message is the text of the hypertext 34 The article of manufacture of claim 29 wherein the link is an image and the associated text message is alternate text of the image
38. g read appears in a different color or appears as if highlighted with a Magic Marker 1 the color of the background behind that text changes so that the user knows visually which text is being read When the mouse is moved outside of this text the text returns to its original color In an alternate embodiment the text does not return to its original color but becomes some other color so that the user visually can distinguish which text has been read and which has not This is similar to the change in color while a hyperlink is being made active and after it has been activated In some embodiments these changes in color and appearance are effected by Cascading Style Sheets An alternative embodiment eliminates the navigation icon part 4 above placed before each link Instead the onMou seover event is written differently so that after the text to speech software is finished reading the link a timer will start If the cursor is still on the link after a set amount of time such as 2 seconds the browser will navigate to the href URL of the link 1 the web page to which the link would navigate when clicked in WEBPAGE 1 the cursor has been moved no navigation occurs WEBPAGE 2 appears identical to WEBPAGE 1 An alternative embodiment substitutes onClick events for onMouseover events This embodiment is geared to before lightning US 7 194 411 B2 7 those whose dexterity is sufficient to click on objects In this embod
39. he fly in real time This code for the web page is then sent back 113 over the Internet to the users computer 103 There the portion of the present invention in the form of plug in software 115 will intercept web page code before it can be displayed by the browser The plug in software will parse the web page and rewrite it with modified code of the text links and other objects as appropriate 117 After the web page code has been modified it is sent to the browser 119 There the browser displays the web page as modified by the plug in 121 The web page will then be read aloud to the user 123 as the user interacts with it After listening to the web page the user may decide to discontinue or quit browsing 125 in which case the process stops 127 On the other hand the user may decide not to quit 125 and may continue browsing by requesting a new web page 107 The user could request a new web page by typing un 0 jak 5 20 40 45 55 65 12 it into a text field or by activating a hyperlink If a new web page is requested the process will continue as before The process of listening to the web page is illustrated in expanded form in FIG 2 Once the browser displays the web page as modified by the plug in 121 the user places the cursor of the pointing device over the text which he or she wishes to hear The code e g JavaScript code placed in the web page by the plug in software feeds the text to a text to
40. he page to which the hyperlink links This is information that a sighted person would see on the browser s status line when the cursor is placed over the link Some screen readers have also been developed as reading aids for the sighted particularly sighted persons who have difficulty learning to read Two examples are the CAST eReader available from CAST Peabody Mass and the HELPRead plug in available from the Hawaii Education Literacy Project HELP Honolulu Hi The CAST eReader will read documents or web pages The user places the cursor focus in front of the text on a document that he or she wants the eReader to read This is performed by placing the cursor at that location and then clicking the left mouse button The eReader will then read the next letter word or sentence depending upon user settings however for web pages only whole sentences are read As the eReader vocalizes the text it will highlight the letter word or sentence being read depending upon user settings however for web pages only words are high lighted When a word is highlighted its background shows a different color as if it had been highlighted by a magic marker The eReader can read one piece of text at a time or automatically continue through an entire document The user can also highlight a portion of text by pointing and clicking with a cursor and then click on a button for the eReader to read that text The eReader can also
41. he roots and trunk of a big fir tree onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this Four little rab bits sit around the roots and trunk of a big fir tree onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this width 250 height 288 gt lt h3 gt lt td gt lt td align center gt lt h3 gt lt SPAN id WebReaderText2 onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits and their names were Flopsy Mopsy Cotton tail and Peter onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this ONCE upon a time there were four little Rabbits and their names were Flopsy Mopsy Cotton tail and Peter lt SPAN gt lt h3 gt lt h3 gt lt SPAN id WebReaderText3 onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this They lived with their Mother in a sand bank underneath the root of a very big fir tree onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this They lived with their Mother in a sand bank underneath the root of a very big fir tree lt SPAN gt lt h3 gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt center gt lt div gt lt div align center gt lt center gt table border 0 500 gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt palign center gt lt A HREF http www simtalk com cgi bin webreader p original Url http ww w simtalk com library PeterRabbit pr4 htm amp originalFrame yes onMouseOver AttemptCursorOverLink this page http www simtalk c
42. he user thereby giving the user an opportunity to cancel the navigation to the linked address With respect to the navigation commands the purpose of the human perceivable delay is to inform the user both visually by highlighting and aurally by speaking the associated text where the button graphic will take the user thereby giving the user an opportunity to cancel the navigation associated with the button graphic As discussed above one preferred grammatical unit is a sentence A sentence defines a sufficiently large target for a user to select If the grammatical unit is a word then the target will be relatively smaller and more difficult for the user to select by mouse movements or the like Furthermore a sentence is a logical grammatical unit for the text to speech function since words are typically comprehended in a sentence format Also when a sentence is the target the entire region that defines the sentence becomes the target not just the regions of the actual text of the sentence Thus the spacing between any lines of a sentence also is part of the active region This further increases the ease in selecting a target The translation process described above is an on the fly process However the translation process may be built into document page building software wherein the source code is modified automatically during the creation process As discussed above the translated text to speech source code retains all of the o
43. iment the icons described in 4 above are elimi nated alternative embodiment that is geared to those whose dexterity is sufficient to click on objects does not place all text within link tags but keeps the icons described in 4 in front of each sentence link and button The icons do not have onMouseover events however but rather onClick events which execute a JavaScript function that causes the text to speech reader to read the following sentence link or button In this embodiment clicking on the link or button on WEBPAGE 2 acts the same as clicking on the link or button on WEBPAGE 1 An alternative embodiment does not have these icons precede each sentence but only each paragraph The onClick event associated with the icon executes a JavaScript function which causes the text to speech reader to read the whole paragraph An alternate formulation allows the user to pause the speech after each sentence or to repeat sentences An alternative embodiment has the onMouseover event which is associated with each hyperlink from WEBPAGE 1 read the URL where the link would navigate A different alternative embodiment reads a phrase such as When you click on this link it will navigate to a web page at before reading the URL In some embodiments this onMouseover event is replaced by an onClick event In an alternative embodiment the text to speech reader speaks nonempty alt tags on images tags provide a text description
44. in the form of WEBPAGE 2 When a user submits a URL web page address to the WEBPAGE BROWSER the user is actually submitting the URL to a CGI script at a server The CGI script navigates to the URL downloads a page such as WEBPAGE 1 parses it on the fly converts it to WEBPAGE 2 and transmits WEBPAGE 2 to the user s computer over the Internet The CGI script also changes the URLs of links that it parses in WEBPAGE 1 The links call the CGI script with a variable consisting of the originally hyperlink URL For example in one embodiment if the hyperlink in WEBPAGE 1 had an href http www nytimes com and the CGI script was at http www simtalk com cgi bin webreader pl then the href of the hyperlink in WEBPAGE 2 reads href http ww w simtalk com cgi bin webreader pl originalUrl www nytimes com When the user activates this link it invokes the CGI script and directs the CGI script to navigate to the hyperlink URL for parsing and modifying This embodiment uses more Internet band width than when the present invention is integrated into the browser and greater server resources However this embodiment can be accessed from any computer hooked to the Internet In this manner people with disabilities do not have to bring their own computers and software with them but can use the computers at any facility This is particularly important for less affluent individuals who do not have their own computers and who access the Internet using public
45. ion of Macromedia s Dreamweaver lt SPAN gt lt SPAN id WebReaderText8 onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this gt lt SPAN gt to lt SCRIPT LANGUAGE JavaScript gt function AttemptStoreSpan whichItem theText top frames SimTalkFrame StoreSpan whichItem theText function SendSpanInformation try AttemptStoreSpan document a Script is enabled clicking on the Point and Read the logo and keeping it there will launch a browser that can read this web page aloud AttemptStoreSpan document a Instructions Peter AttemptStoreSpan document a time there were four little Rabbits and their AttemptStoreSpan document a WebReaderTextO When Java ogo or putting the computers cursor over new window with the webreeder a talking WebReaderText1 webreeder WebReaderText2 Once upon a names were Flopsy Mopsy Cotton tail and WebReaderText3 They lived with their Mother in a sand bank underneath the root of a very big fir tree AttemptStoreSpan document a AttemptStoreSpan document a Home Page AttemptStoreSpan document a Bobby Approved AttemptStoreSpan document a WebReaderText4 Next page WebReaderText5 Back to Library WebReaderText6 This page is WebReaderText7 This page has been tested for and found to be compliant with Section 508 using the UseableNet extension
46. l automatically be placed in separate queues If both functions call the sound card via different software applications and the sound card has multi channel processing such as ESS Maestro2E both software applications will be heard simultaneously Alternatively the two applications can be queued one after another via the coding that the present invention adds to WEBPAGE 2 Alternatively a plug in is created that monitors data streams sent to the sound card These streams are suppressed at user option For example if the sound card is playing streaming audio from an Internet radio station and this streaming conflicts with the text to speech synthesis the streaming audio channel is automatically muted or softened In an alternative embodiment the href value is omitted from the link tag for text part 1 above The href value is the address or URL of the web page to which the browser navigates when the user clicks on a link In browsers such as Microsoft s Internet Explorer the text in WEBPAGE 2 retains the original font color of WEBPAGE 1 and is not underlined Thus WEBPAGE 2 appears even more like WEBPAGE 1 In an alternative embodiment a new HTML tag is created that functions like a link tag except that the text is not underlined This new tag is recognized by the new built in routines WEBPAGE 2 appears very much like WEBPAGE 1 In an alternate embodiment when the onMouseover event is triggered the text that is bein
47. lder cnet com webbuilding 0 7600 8 5828510 1 html tag st bl 7600 8 5828113 1 txt 7600 8 printout date Feb 15 2002 date submitted to web site Jun 24 1998 original web page posting date unknown 3 pages HTML Tutorials Span Tag printout from web site http hypergurl com span html printout date Feb 8 2002 original web page posting date unknown 2 pages Clickless Link by Joey Mornin printouts from web site http www scriptlib com printout date Feb 12 2002 and Feb 15 2002 original web page posting date unknown 5 pages Events and Event Handlers onMouseOver printout from Netscape web site http developer netscape com docs manuals communica tor jsref evnt17 htm printout date Feb 15 2002 original web page posting date unknown 2 pages BrowseAloud User Manual dated Aug 23 2002 printout from Spectronics web site http www spectronicsinoz com library asp article 12331 amp display print printout date Jul 25 2003 4 pages BrowseAloud Screen Reader Press Release dated Nov 26 2002 printout from Access Ingenuity web site http www accessingenu ity com Product 20 Pages browsealoudpressrelease htm printout date Jul 25 2003 2 pages WordSmith v2 0 article describing Jan 15 2001 product launch printout from Sight and Sound Technology website http www sightandsound co uk pages WordSmith intro print htm printout date Jul 25 2003 2 pages textHELP Support Centre Discussion Area
48. led document wherein when an event associated with an event handler occurs during user interaction with a display of a text to speech enabled document the text to speech software code causes the grammatical unit associated with the tag of the event handler to be automatically spoken 28 The article of manufacture of claim 27 wherein the grammatical units are sentences 29 An article of manufacture for allowing a user to interact with a web page displayed on a display device wherein the web page includes one or more links that have an associated text message the article of manufacture com prising a computer readable medium holding computer executable instructions for performing a method compris ing a positioning a pointing device over a link the link being automatically highlighted whenever the pointing device is over the link b automatically loading the associated text message of the link into a text to speech engine the associated text message thereby being automatically spoken and c automatically navigating to the address of the link wherein steps a b and c occur sequentially and without requiring any further user manipulation of the pointing device or any other user interfaces associated with display device 30 The article of manufacture of claim 29 wherein step c occurs only if the pointing device persists over the link for greater than a preset time period 31 The article of manufacture of claim 30 wher
49. ment no such limitation is intended WEBPAGE 1 may include tables framesets referenced code or files or other objects US 7 194 411 B2 11 WEBPAGE 1 is intended to refer to the collection of files code applets scripts objects and documents wherever stored that is displayed by the user s browser as a web page The present invention parses each of these and replaces appropriate symbols and code so that WEBPAGE 2 appears similar to WEBPAGE 1 but has the requisite text to speech functionality of the present invention While these embodiments have been described as if alt values occurred only in conjunction with images no such limitation is intended Similar alternative descriptions accompany other objects and are intended to be spoken by the present invention at the option of the user For example closed captioning has been a television broadcast technology for showing subtitles of spoken words but similar approaches to providing access for the disabled have been and are being extended to streaming media and other Internet multi media technologies As another example accessibility advocates desire that all visual media include an audio description and that all audio media include a text captioning system Audio descriptions however take up considerable bandwidth The present invention takes a text captioning system and with text to speech software creates an audio description on the fly While these embodiments have been
50. navigation to the address of the link occurs A similar process occurs with respect to the navigation toolbar of the browser If the mouse is positioned over an active region of a button graphic the button graphic is automatically highlighted the associated text message is automatically loaded into a text to speech engine and imme diately spoken and the command function of the button graphic is automatically initiated Again this entire process occurs without requiring any further user manipulation of the mouse or any other user interfaces associated with display device Preferably the command function is auto matically initiated only if the mouse persists over the active region of the button graphic for greater than about one second However in certain instances and for certain users the command function may be automatically initiated with out any human perceivable delay In an alternative embodi ment a human perceivable delay such as one second is programmed to occur after the button graphic is highlighted but before the associated text message is spoken If the mouse moves out of the active region of the button graphic before the end of the delay period then the text message is not spoken and also the command function of the button graphic is not initiated In another alternative embodiment such as when the button graphic is a universally understood icon designating the function of the button there is no associated text mess
51. new onMouseover handlers This implementation requires less parsing so is less vulnerable to error and reduces the document size of WEBPAGE 2 In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the parsing routines are built into a browser either directly or as a plug in as an applet as an object as an add in etc Only WEBPAGE 1 is transmitted over the Internet In this embodiment the parsing occurs at the user s client computer or Internet appliance that is the browser plug in combi nation gets WEBPAGE 1 from the Internet parses it turns it into WEBPAGE 2 and then displays WEBPAGE 2 If the 10 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 user has dexterity problems the control objects for the browser buttons icons etc are triggered by onMouseover events rather than the onClick or onDoubleClick events usually associated with computer applications that use a graphical interface In an alternative embodiment the user accesses the present invention from a web page with framesets that make the web page look like a browser WEBPAGE BROWSER One ofthe frames contains buttons or images that look like the control objects usually found on browsers and these control objects have the same functions usually found on browsers e g navigation search history print home etc These functions are triggered by onMouseover events associated with each image or button The second frame will display web pages
52. nstead of showing standard MFC buttons on the user interface this implementation uses a custom button class one which allows each button to be highlighted as the cursor passes over it Each button is oversized and allows an icon representing its action to be shown on its face Some of these buttons are set to automatically stay in an activated state looking like a depressed button until another action is taken so as to lock the button s function to an on state For example a Play button activates a systematic reading of the web page document and reading continues as long as the button remains activated A set of such buttons is used to emulate the functionality of scroll bars as well The document highlighting reading and navigation is accomplished in a manner similar to the server based embodiment following similar steps as the online server based webreaders described above First for the client based embodiment when the user s computer retrieves a document either locally from the user s computer or from over the Internet or other network the document is parsed into sentences using the Markup Services interface to the document The application calls functions that step through the document one sentence at a time and inserts span tags to delimit the beginning and end of each sentence The document object model is subse quently updated so that each sentence has its own node in the document s hierarchy This
53. nt ing If this timer reaches its end before the cursor leaves the object then the object s default action is performed Such default actions include navigating to a link pushing or activating a button etc In this way clickless point and read navigation is achieved and other clickless activation is accomplished The invention is not limited to computers operating a Windows platform or programmed using C Alternate embodiments accomplish the same steps using other pro gramming languages such Visual Basic other program ming tools other browser components e g Netscape Navi gator and other operating systems e g Apple s MacIntosh OS An alternate embodiment does not use Active Accessibil ity for highlighting objects on the document Rather after detecting a mouse movement a pointer to the document is obtained A function of the document translates the cursor s location into a pointer to an object within the document the object that the cursor is over This object is queried for its original background color and the background color is changed Alternately one of the object s ancestors or chil dren is highlighted The present invention may be implemented with any combination of hardware and software If implemented as a computer implemented apparatus the present invention is implemented using means for performing all of the steps and functions described above The present invention may be implemented with any
54. nthesized speech In this embodiment which uses Microsoft Agent the animated character Peedy 403 appears to speak the words In addition Microsoft Agent generates a word balloon 605 that displays each word as it is spoken In FIG 6 the screen capture has occurred while Peedy 403 is halfway through speaking the sentence 603 The user may then quit 313 in which case the process stops 127 or the user may request a web page 315 e g by typing it in activating a link etc However this web page is not requested directly from the computer server hosting the web page 109 Rather the request is made of a CGI script at the computer hosting the portal 303 The link in the home page contains the information necessary for the portal server computer to request the web page from its host As seen in the sample code the URL for the For more details click here link is not www nytimes com quake54 html as in WEBPAGE 1 but rather http www simtalk com cgi bin webreader pl originalUrl www nytimes com quake54 html Clicking on this link will send the browser to the CGI script at simtalk com which will obtain and parse the web page at www nytimes com quake54 html add the code to control the text to speech engine and send the modified code back to the browser As restated in terms of FIG 3 when this web page request 315 is received by the portal server computer the CGI script requests the web page which the user desires 317 from
55. o access Microsoft Agent software and the Lemout and Hauspie TruVoice text to speech software that is bundled with it object tags are placed of the top frame 411 OBJECT classid clsid ks Id 2 AgentControl CODEBASE VERSION a lt OBJECT gt lt OBJECT classid clsid a Id Tru Voice CODEBASE VERSION lt OBJECT gt The redacted code is known to practitioners of the art and is specified by and modified from time to time by Microsoft and Lernout and Hauspie The header also contains various JavaScript or Jscript code including the following functions Cur sorOut and Speak SCRIPT LANGUAGE JavaScript lt function CursorOver theText delayedText theText clearTimeout delayedTextTimer delayedTextTimer setTimeout Speak theText 1000 1 function CursorOut clearTimeout delayedText Timer ies delayedText function Speak whatToSay speakReq Peedy Speak whatToSay gt SCRIPT The use of these functions written is more fully under stood in conjunction with the code for the Back button that appears in frame 411 This code references functions known to those skilled in the art which cause the browser to retrieve the last web page shown in frame 413 and display that page again in frame 413 In this respect the Back button acts like _ 0 an 5
56. om library PeterRabbit pr4 htm 20 25 30 35 24 onMouseOut AttemptCursorOutLink this gt Next page lt a gt lt p gt lt p gt lt HREF http www simtalk com library onMouseOver AttemptCursorOverLink this Back to Library Home Page http www simtalk com library onMouseOut AttemptCursorOutLink this gt Back Library Home Page lt a gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt center gt lt div gt lt SPAN id WebReaderText6 onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this This page is Bobby Approved onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this This page is Bobby Approved lt SPAN gt lt br gt lt A HREF http www cast org bobby gt lt IMG onMouseOver AttemptCursorOverL ink this Bobby logo http www cast org bobby y onMouseOut AttemptCursorOutLink this SRC http www cast org images approved gif alt Bobby logo onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this Bobby logo onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this gt lt a gt lt br gt lt SPAN id WebReaderText 7 onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this This page has been tested for and found to be compliant with Section 508 using the UseableNet extension of Macromedias Dreamweaver onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this This page has been tested for and found to be compliant with Section 508 using the UseableNet exten s
57. operate lt NOSCRIPT gt meta http equiv Content Type content text html charset iso 8859 1 lt meta name GENERATOR content Microsoft FrontPage 3 0 gt lt title gt pr3 lt title gt lt SCRIPT LANGUAGE JavaScript gt function AttemptCursorOver which theText try top frames SimTalkframe CursorOver which theText catch e function AttemptCursorOut which try top frames SimTalkframe CursorOut which catch e function AttemptCursorOverLink which theText theLink theTarget 22 try top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOverLink which theText theLink theTarget catch e function AttemptCursorOutLink which try top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOutLink which catch e function AttemptCursorOverFormButton which try top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOverFormButton which catch e function AttemptCursorOutF ormButton which try top frames SimTalkFrame CursorOutFormButton which catch e lt NOSCRIPT gt The Point and Read Webreader requires JavaScript to operate NOSCRIPT head body bgcolor FFFFFF gt SCRIPT SRC http www simtalk com webreader webreaderl js gt lt SCRIPT gt lt NOSCRIPT gt lt P gt lt SPAN id WebReaderTextO onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this When Java Script is enabled clicking on the Point and Read logo or putting the computers cursor over the logo and keeping it there will launch a new
58. orginal web page not shown except that it has been modified by the translation process to be text to speech enabled The mouse is not over any active region of the web page and thus nothing is highlighted in FIG 12 FIG 13 shows the web page of FIG 12 wherein the user has moved the mouse to the active region of the BACK button ofthe navigation toolbar The BACK button becomes highlighted and the associated text message is automatically spoken If the mouse remains over the active region of the BACK button for a human perceivable time period the browser will navigate to the previous address and thus will redisplay the web page shown in FIG 8 un 0 a 5 25 40 45 50 20 With respect to the non linking text e g sentences the purpose of the human perceivable delay is to allow the user to visually comprehend the current active region of the document e g web page before the text is spoken This avoids unnecessary speaking and any delays that would be associated with it The delay may be set to be very long e g 3 10 seconds if the user has significant cognitive impair ments If no delay is set then the speech should preferably stop upon detection of a mouseOut onmouseOut event to avoid unnecessary speaking With respect to the linking text the purpose of the human perceivable delay is to inform the user both visually by highlighting and aurally by speaking the associated text where the link will take t
59. per form to be read by text to speech software Many people have difficulty reading any specified text document even if they are not blind People have difficulty reading a document that is not written in their native or ethnic language In the United States this literacy problem is attacked by the special educational programs and efforts referred to as ESL programs or English as a Second Language People have difficulty reading a document that is written with technical terms that they are not familiar with People have difficulty reading a document that is written with more difficult words or sentence constructions than they are competent to decipher For example in the United States almost a quarter of the adult population reads at or below the fourth grade level and has difficulty reading and understanding the directions on the back of a medicine bottle Other people have difficulty reading any text because of dyslexia mental retardation or various developmental or cognitive disabilities Other people have difficulty reading because of cultural or educational disabilities Some of those who have difficulty reading may be sighted but have motor control disabilities which make drag and drop point and click or copy and paste operations difficult Some electronic texts such as some web sites provide alternate texts in a few different languages Some web sites provide automated machine translation of any text or web page that
60. plement To make the sentence change color font or background while being read aloud the variable this is added to the argument of the function call CursorOver and CursorOut These functions can then US 7 194 411 B2 15 access the color and background properties of this and change the font style on the fly As with the Back button in frame 411 and as known to those skilled in the art when the user places the cursor over either the sentence or the link and does not move the cursor off that sentence or link then the MouseOver event will cause the speech synthesis engine to speak the text in the CursorOver function The window top fram Simtalk Frame is the naming convention that tells the browser to look for the CursorOver or CursorOut function in the frame 411 The home page is then read by the text to speech software 311 This process is not shown in detail but is identical to the process detailed in FIG 2 An example of a particular web page or home page is shown in FIG 5 This is the same as FIG 4 except that a particular web page has been loaded into the bottom frame 413 Referring to FIG 6 when the user places the cursor 601 over a particular sentence 603 When you access this page through the web Reader the web page will talk to you the sentence is highlighted If the user keeps the cursor on the highlighted sentence the text to speech engine reads the words in sy
61. r elsewhere This meta tag contains a commercial message or sponsorship of the reading services for the web page The message may be text or the URL of an audio message The present invention reads or plays this message when it first encounters the web page The web page author can charge sponsors a fee for the message and the reading service can charge the web page for reading its message This advertis ing model is similar to the sponsorship of closed captioning on TV Several products including HELPRead Browser Buddy and the above identified U S application Ser No 09 974 132 use and teach methods by which a link can be embed ded in a web page and the text to speech software can be launched by clicking on that link In a similar manner a link can be embedded in a web page which will launch the present invention in its various embodiments Such a link can distinguish which embodiment the user has installed and launch the appropriate one Text to speech software frequently has difficulty distin guishing heterophonic homographs or isonyms words that are spelled the same but sound different An example is the word bow as in After the archer shoots his bow he will bow before the king A text to speech engine will usually choose one pronunciation for all instances of the word A text to speech engine will also have difficulty speaking uncommon names or terms that do not obey the usual pronunciation rules While this is
62. r formats that are stored or transmitted via the Internet including ASCII documents e mail in its various protocols and FTP accessed documents in a variety of electronic formats As an example the Gutenberg Project contains thousands of books in electronic format but not HTML As another example many web based e mail particularly free services such as Hotmail deliver e mail as HTML documents whereas other e mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Eudora use a POP protocol to store and deliver content WEBPAGE 1 also refers to formatted text files produced by word processing software such as Microsoft Word and files that contain text whether produced by spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel by data base software such as Microsoft Access or any of a variety of e mail and document production software Alternate embodiments of the present invention speak and read these several types of documents WEBPAGE 1 also refers to documents stored or trans mitted over intranets local area networks LANs wide area networks WANs and other networks even if not stored or transmitted over the Internet WEBPAGE 1 also refers to documents created stored accessed processed or displayed on a single computer and never transmitted to that computer over any network including documents read from remov able discs regardless of where created While these embodiments have been described as if WEBPAGE 1 was a single HTML docu
63. r invokes the text to speech software code The high lighting feature may be implemented using any suitable conventional techniques 4 The original web page source code is then reassembled with the associated tags and event handlers to form text to speech enabled web page source code Accordingly when an event associated with an event handler occurs during user interaction with a display of a text to speech enabled web page the text to speech software code causes the grammati cal unit associated with the tag of the event handler to be automatically spoken If the source code includes any images designated for display and if any of the images include an associated text message typically defined by an alternate text or alt attribute e g alt text message then in step 3 an event handler that invokes text to speech software code is asso ciated with each of the images that have an associated text message In step 4 the original web page source code is reassembled with the image related event handlers Accord ingly when an event associated with an image related event handler occurs during user interaction with an image in a display of a text to speech enabled web page the text to speech software code causes the associated text message of the image to be automatically spoken The user may interact with the display using any type of pointing device such as a mouse trackball light pen joystick or touchpad i e digitizing
64. riginal functionality as well as appearance so that navigation may be performed in the same manner as in the original web page such as by using mouse clicks If the user performs a mouse click and the timer that delays activation of a linking or navigation command has not yet timed out the mouse click overrides the delay and the linking or navigation command is immediately initiated D Source Code Associated with Additional Exemplary Embodiment As discussed above the original source code is translated into text to speech enabled source code The source code below is a comparison of the original source code of the web page shown in FIG 7 with the source code of the translated text to speech enabled source code as generated by Com pareRite Deletions appear as Overstrike text surrounded by 1 Additions appear as Bold text surrounded by lt DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC IETF DTD HTML EN lt html gt lt head gt lt meta http equiv Content Type content text html 8859 1 gt lt meta name GENERATOR content Microsoft FrontPage 3 0 title pr3 lt title gt lt SCRIPT LANGUAGE JavaScript gt function TryToSend US 7 194 411 B2 21 continued ty top frames SimTalkFrame SetOriginalUrl window location href catch e setTimeout Try ToSend 200 TryToSend lt SCRIPT gt NOSCRIPT The Point and Read Webreader requires JavaScript to
65. ry is spoken by the text to speech software when the user places a cursor or pointer over the icon In an alternative embodiment of the present invention a code placed on a web page such as in a meta tag in the heading of the page or in the spoken caption icons identifies the language in which the web page is written e g English Spanish The present invention then translates the text of the web page sentence by sentence and displays a new web page WEBPAGE 2 in the language used by the text to speech engine of the present invention after inserting the code that allows the text to speech engine to speak the text This includes the various onMouseover commands etc In an alternate embodiment the new web page WEBPAGE 2 is shown in the original language but the onMouseover commands have the text to speech engine read the translated version In an alternative embodiment the translation does not occur until the user places a pointer or cursor over a text passage Then the present invention uses the information about what language WEBPAGE 1 is written in to translate that particular text passage on the fly into the language of the text to speech engine and causes the engine to speak the translated words While the above embodiments have been described as if WEBPAGE 1 were an HTML document primarily designed for display on the Internet no such limitation is intended WEBPAGE 1 also refers to documents produced in othe
66. speech module 205 such as DECtalk originally writ ten by Digital Equipment Corporation or TruVoice by Ler nout and Hauspie The text to speech module may be a stand alone piece of software or may be bundled with other software For example the Virtual Friend animation soft ware from Haptek incorporates DECtalk whereas Microsoft Agent animation software incorporates TruVoice Both of these software packages have animated cartoons which move their lips along with the sounds generated by the text to speech software i e the cartoons lip sync the words Other plug ins or similar ActiveX objects such as Speaks for Itself by DirectXtras Inc Menlo Park Calif generate synthetic speech from text without animated speak ers In any event the text to speech module 205 converts the text 207 that has been fed to it 203 into a sound file The sound file is sent to the computers sound card and speakers where it is played aloud 209 and heard by the user In an alternative embodiment in which the text to speech module is combined or linked to animation software instructions will also be sent to the animation module which generate bitmaps of the cartoon lip syncing the text The bitmaps are sent to the computer monitor to be displayed in conjunction with the sound of the text being played over the speakers In any event once the text has been read aloud the user must decide if he or she wants to hear it again 211 If so the user mo
67. ssoci ated tags and event handlers to form a visually display able text to speech enabled document wherein when an event associated with an event handler occurs during user interaction with a display of a text to speech enabled document the text to speech software code causes the grammatical unit associated with the tag of the event handler to be automatically spoken 11 The method of claim 10 wherein the grammatical units are sentences 12 A method of allowing a user to interact with a web page displayed on a display device wherein the web page includes one or more links that have an associated text message the method comprising a positioning a pointing device over a link the link being automatically highlighted whenever the pointing device is over the link b automatically loading the associated text message of the link into a text to speech engine the associated text message thereby being automatically spoken and c automatically navigating to the address of the link wherein steps a b and c occur sequentially and without requiring any further user manipulation of the pointing device or any other user interfaces associated with display device 13 The method of claim 12 wherein step c occurs only if the pointing device persists over the link for greater than a preset time period 14 The method of claim 13 wherein the preset time period is a human perceivable time period 15 The method of claim 13 wherein th
68. t handler invokes the text to speech software code by calling a function associated with a scripting language that executes text to speech software code 26 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein at least one of the grammatical units is a link having an associated address and the computer executable instructions perform a method further comprising e replacing the associated address of any links with a new address that invokes a software program the software program retrieving the source code at the associated address and then causing steps a e to be repeated for the retrieved source code wherein the new address becomes part of the text to speech enabled web page source code 27 An article of manufacture for translating an original document to a visually displayable text to speech enabled document the original document including at least text the article of manufacture comprising a computer readable 5 um 0 a 5 20 40 45 30 medium holding computer executable instructions for per forming a method comprising a parsing the text of the original document into one or more grammatical units b associating a tag with each of the grammatical units c associating an event handler with each of the tags the event handler invokes text to speech software code and d reassembling the original document with the associ ated tags and event handlers to form a visually display able text to speech enab
69. teracts with the display via a pointing device and the event is a MouseOver event associated with the pointing device 20 The article of manufacture of claim 19 wherein each tag has an active region and the event handler delays invoking the text to speech software code until the pointing device persists in the active region of a tag for greater than a preset time period 21 The article of manufacture of claim 20 wherein the preset time period is a human perceivable time period 22 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein the source code further includes one or more images designated for display one or more of the images including an associ ated text message step c further comprising associating an event handler that invokes text to speech software code with each of the images that have an associated text message and step d further comprising reassembling the original web page source code with the image related event handlers wherein when an event associated with an image related event handler occurs during user interaction with an image in a display of a text to speech enabled web page the text to speech software code causes the associated text message of the image to be automatically spoken 23 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein the grammatical units are sentences 24 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein the tag is a span tag 25 The article of manufacture of claim 18 wherein in step c the even
70. tes for the requested information and reconstituting it on an Octopus page before delivering it to the user Text to speech software has also been adapted as plug ins for Internet browsers These may be stand alone speech synthesis programs or may be coupled with an animation program so that a cartoon will appear to speak the words Two such programs are the Haptek Virtual Friend animation program available from Haptek Inc Santa Cruz Calif which in February 2001 was coupled with DECtalk text to speech program available from Fonix Corporation Draper US 7 194 411 B2 3 Utah and the Microsoft Agent animation program which is frequently coupled with the Lernout amp Hauspie TruVoice text to speech program Apple computer also has a text to speech program called PlainTalk These various plug ins can be accessed from web pages that have embedded the appropriate code causing certain predesignated portions of the web page to be spoken The web page designer creator decides which portions of the web page will talk An authoring application that helps web designers use Microsoft Agent is Buddy Builder by Shelldrake Technolo gies Concord N H A web page that uses this software includes a link that when activated launches a new browser window The new browser window displays a modified version of the web page This web page will speak when the browser registers various events e g onLoad onMou seover onCli
71. to form visually displayable text to speech enabled web page source code wherein when an event associated with an event handler occurs during user interaction with a display of a text to speech enabled web page the text to speech software code causes the grammatical unit associated with the tag of the event handler to be automatically spoken 2 The method of claim 1 wherein the user interacts with the display via a pointing device and the event is a Mou seOver event associated with the pointing device 3 The method of claim 2 wherein each tag has an active region and the event handler delays invoking the text to speech software code until the pointing device persists in the active region of a tag for greater than a preset time period 4 The method of claim 3 wherein the preset time period is a human perceivable time period 5 The method of claim 1 wherein the source code further includes one or more images designated for display one or more of the images including an associated text message step c further comprising associating an event handler that invokes text to speech software code with each of the images that have an associated text message and step d further comprising reassembling the original web page source code with the image related event handlers wherein when an event associated with an image related event han dler occurs during user interaction with an image in a display of a text to speech enabled web page the te
72. tton In other words if a user places a pointer e g mouse or wand over the icon the browser acts as if the user had clicked the subsequent link or button As is evident to those skilled in the art WEBPAGE 2 will appear almost identical to WEBPAGE 1 except all standard text will be underlined and there will be small icons in front of every link and button The user can have any sentence link or button read to him by moving the pointing device over it This allows two classes of disabled users to access the web page those who have difficulty reading and those with dexterity impairments that prevent them from click ing on objects 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 65 6 In many implementations of JavaScript for part 3 above both the original onMouseover function call as in WEBPAGE 1 and the new onMouseover function call used in part 2 can be placed in the same onMouseover handler For example if a link in WEBPAGE 1 contained the text Buy before lightning strikes and a picture of clear skies along with the code onMouseOver ShowLightning y which makes lightning flash in the sky picture WEBPAGE 2 would contain the code onMouseOver CursorOver Buy strikes ShowLightning The invention avoids conflicts between function calls to the computer sound card in several ways No conflict arises if both function calls access Microsoft Agent because the two texts to be spoken wil
73. ves the cursor off the text 213 and them moves the cursor back over the text 215 This will again cause the code to feed the text to the text to speech module 203 which will read it again In an alternate embodiment the user activates a specially designated replay button If the user does not want to hear the text again he or she must decide whether to hear other different text on the page 217 If the user wants to hear other text he or she places the cursor over that text 201 as described above Otherwise the user must decide whether to quit browsing 123 as described more fully in FIG 1 and above FIG 3 shows the flow chart for an alternative embodiment ofthe present invention In this embodiment the parsing and modifying of WEBPAGE 1 does not occur in a plug in FIG 1 115 installed on the user s computer 103 but rather occurs at a website that acts as a portal using software installed in the server computer 303 that hosts the website In FIG 3 at the start 101 of this process the user launches a browser 105 on his or her computer 103 Instead of requesting that the browser navigate to any website the user then must request the portal website 301 The server com puter 303 at the portal website will create the home page 305 that will serve as the WEBBROWSER for the user This may be simple HTML code or may require dynamic creation In any event the home page code is returned to the user s computer 307 where it is
74. window with the webreeder a talking browser that can read this web page aloud onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this When Java Script is enabled clicking on the Point and Read amp 153 logo or putting the computer s cursor over the logo and keeping it there will launch a new window with the Web Reader a talking browser that can read this web page aloud lt SPAN gt lt P gt lt NOSCRIPT gt 1 lt IMG SRC http www simtalk com webreader webreaderlogo60 gif border 2 ALT Point and Read Webreader onMouseOver AttemptCursorOver this 50 55 60 65 Point and Read webreeder onMouseOut AttemptCursorOut this gt lt br gt lt A HREF http www simtalk com cgi bin webreader pl originalUrl http www simtalk com we breader instructions html amp originalFrame yes onMouseOver AttemptCursorOverLink this webreeder Instructions http www simtalk com we breader instructions html onMouseOut AttemptCursorOutLink this onMouseOver WebreaderInstructions_CursorOver y return true onMouseOut Webreaderlnstructions_CursorOut return true gt Web Reader Instructions lt a gt lt p gt div align center gt lt center gt lt table border 0 width 500 gt US 7 194 411 B2 23 lt tr gt lt td gt lt h3 gt lt IMG SRC http www simtalk com li brary PeterRabbit P3 gif alt Four little rabbits sit around t
75. xt to speech software code causes the associated text message of the image to be automatically spoken 6 The method of claim 1 wherein the grammatical units are sentences 7 The method of claim 1 wherein the tag is a span tag 8 The method of claim 1 wherein in step c the event handler invokes the text to speech software code by calling a function associated with a scipting language that executes text to speech software code 9 The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the grammatical units is a link having an associated address the method further comprising e replacing the associated address of any links with a new address that invokes a software program the software program retrieving the source code at the associated address and then causing steps a e to be 5 15 25 30 40 45 55 60 28 repeated for the retrieved source code wherein the new address becomes part ofthe text to speech enabled web page source code 10 A method of translating an original document to a visually displayable text to speech enabled document the original document including at least text the method com prising a parsing the text of the original document into one or more grammatical units b associating a tag with each of the grammatical units c associating an event handler with each of the tags the event handler invokes text to speech software code and d reassembling the original document with the a
76. y or almost immedi ately highlights the button graphic and invokes the text to speech software code for automatically speaking the asso ciated text message Then if the mouseover event persists for greater than a human perceivable preset time period the command function associated with the button graphic is executed If the user moves the pointing device away from the active region of the button graphic before the preset time period then the command function associated with the button graphic is not executed and the highlighting disap pears C Point and Read Process The point and read process for interacting with translated web pages is preferably implemented in the environment of the special browser so that the entire web page interaction process may be clickless In the example described herein the grammatical units are sentences the pointing device is a mouse and the human perceivable preset time period is about one second user interacts with a web page displayed on a display device The web page includes one or more sentences each 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 18 being defined by an active region mouse is positioned over an active region of a sentence which causes the sentence to be automatically highlighted and automatically loaded into a text to speech engine and thereby automati cally spoken This entire process occurs without requiring any further user manipulation of the pointing

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